


Washing Horses and Dancing Fish

by adorkablephil (kimberly_a)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Bad French, Established Relationship, Flirting, Français | French, M/M, Singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-19 23:36:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15521217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimberly_a/pseuds/adorkablephil
Summary: Phil and Dan both took French in school. It has proved very useful in their day-to-day lives. Not.





	Washing Horses and Dancing Fish

**Author's Note:**

> **Author’s Note 1:**  This story was written for the @phanfichallenge Languages Challenge on Tumblr and so includes a lot of French. If you don’t know any French, I’m afraid this story might not make much sense, but give it a try. I tried to create a translated version, but too many of the jokes rely on rhyming in French, so it didn’t work. :(
> 
>  **Author’s Note 2:**  Even if you do know French, this story REALLY won’t make sense if you haven’t heard the song “Lady Marmalade,” particularly the version from the movie Moulin Rouge (which you can listen to [ **here**](https://youtu.be/RQa7SvVCdZk) on YouTube). In fact, I’d recommend listening to that song before reading this, even if you’re already familiar with the song, just to get the rhythm of the chorus stuck in your head (which will help, believe me).
> 
>  **Author’s Note 3:**  Thank you to @lexou-chan for help with the French! Fluent French speakers: I apologize for anything that makes you wince, but all remaining French errors are entirely purposeful on my part, because I wouldn’t expect Dan or Phil’s French to be perfect, and I would also expect them to make jokes at their own expense.

********Dan came into the kitchen to find Phil with his butt high in the air, swaying from side to side as the grown man in question belted out “Lady Marmalade” while scrubbing the oven.

“Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?” he sang in a rather lower register than the song was usually heard, though Phil could do an impressive falsetto if he really tried. Dan’s was better, though, especially when Phil did something to his body that particularly inspired his voice to soar higher. After this many years, Phil knew which things to do if he wanted that response, and knew when  _not_  to do them, such as when they were staying over with his parents. Dan didn’t have very good self-control when it came to certain bodily responses.

After this many years, Dan, too, knew his partner well, and he knew not to be surprised by a black-denimed ass swaying to music in the middle of their sleek, modern kitchen. Dan simply leaned against the kitchen island and watched, waiting for Phil to realize that he was no longer alone. When Phil tried and failed to hit one of Christina Aguilera’s high notes, Dan gave the game away by snorting with laughter. Phil hit his head in surprise as he pulled out of the oven to turn to look where Dan stood a few feet away.

“Ouch!” Phil complained, then raised a plastic gloved hand to touch what would probably be a lump on the back of his head. In his other hand, he held a scrub brush that looked positively filthy. They must not have cleaned the oven in a while.

“Did you just get oven-cleaner in your hair?” Dan asked, chuckling. “That stuff can eat through anything, you know. You’d better go have a shower.”

Phil came dancing over to Dan, still wearing the plastic cleaning glove on one hand and wielding a scrub brush in the other. He swiveled his hips and sang, “Voulez-vous doucher avec moi maintenant?”

It was actually a clever little rhyme. Dan was impressed. But he couldn’t give that away at this point in the game. “Oh, Phil, I think we know each other well enough by now that you could use the familiar ‘tu’ with me. Don’t hold me at such a distance. Don’t ‘vous’ me, Phil!” He grinned.

“But that doesn’t scan!” Phil pouted. “‘Veux-tu doucher avec moi’ doesn’t work at all.” He rinsed out the scrub brush, threw both brush and glove into the sink, and washed his hands thoroughly, all with his “deep thinking” expression beetling his brows.

“Aha!” He cried, drying his hands on the Pokémon tea towel. “Veux veux-tu doucher avec moi maintenant?” he sang.

Dan rolled his eyes and scoffed, “You can’t just repeat the verb twice! That doesn’t make any sense!”

“It’s for emphasis,” Phil insisted, nodding his head vigorously. Dan just shook his head in return, giving his best unimpressed face.

“Oh yeah?” Phil challenged, throwing his arms out like a rapper in a rap battle. “Well, you want something that doesn’t make sense? Mouchez moues mauvais avec ma mémoire!”

Dan laughed. “Yeah, well, if we get into a battle of who can make the least sense, no matter what language it’s in, you’ll definitely take the prize every time.” But Phil just grinned, never one to take offense at such jibes.

In fact, Phil’s smile had gone sweet and soft as he pressed Dan’s body against the kitchen island. “So, how about it, Howell? You going to shower with me or what?” Phil’s hands were on Dan’s hips now, index fingers hooked persuasively into his belt loops.

“Yeah, I guess,” Dan said, faking nonchalance. Then he leaned forward and kissed Phil quickly. “But only if … if …” He formulated the sentence in his brain. It had been a long time since he studied French. He sang, “Embrasse-moi très fort, mon amour, ma foi!” which made Phil grin.

“Your wish is my command, monsieur,” Phil smirked, and then the little shit had the audacity to take Dan into his arms and dip him right there in the middle of the kitchen, kissing him soundly while holding him dangling above the floor like a swooning Victorian maiden. The guy might be wiry, but he was stronger than he looked. When Phil finally pulled away from the kiss, Dan actually did  _feel_  a little bit like a swooning Victorian maiden, truth be told. Phil brought him back to standing on legs he would swear until the day he died were  _not_  quivering in response to that kiss. Phil looked very proud of himself. Dan scowled.

“Okay fine,” he grouched. “Now on to that shower, before your hair turns purple or all falls out or something.” But he’d regained his good humor along with the strength in his legs, so he joked, “Viens avec moi, mon petit choux. Let’s washez tes cheveux.”

Phil looked very, very sad. Very, very fake sad. “I have no horses to wash, I’m afraid,” he grieved.

“No, you peasant! It means let’s wash your hair,” Dan explained, even though he knew Phil was just pulling his leg.

“Yeah, I love how you used that very formal French word for washing: ‘washez.’” Phil giggled.

“Oh shut up. I know the real world sounds like ‘laundry,’ but I couldn’t remember what it was.”

Phil nodded with a mock thoughtfulness. “Apparently, we both need to brush up on our French. Our français has turned into franglais.”

“You do realize that your hair is currently being eaten away by oven-cleaner while we have this linguistic conversation, right?”

“Right!” Phil said, slapping his hands against his thighs and turning toward the door. “Let’s go wash my horses, shall we?”

***

Dan noticed Phil with Google Translate open in his Chrome browser the next day. “What are you working on?” he asked, curious if Phil was developing a new video idea.

“Nothing,” Phil answered, eyes wide and innocent. Dan didn’t believe it for a second. “Rien,” Phil insisted, then giggled.

Dan sighed. “More French?”

Phil flopped backward onto the couch in a sprawl of resignation. “I just have that song stuck in my head now, but I keep singing different lyrics for it. And then I think of other lyrics, but I don’t know how to say them in French, so then I have to look them up. Or I think of words that are in French and fit the rhyme, but I don’t remember what the words mean, and so I have to look them up.” Phil raised his head to look at Dan in despair. “There’s been a lot of looking things up.” He flopped his head back down onto the cushions.

“Just because you have a song stuck in your head.”

“It’s the way my brain works. I should have added that to the map of my brain video, the section of my brain where songs get stuck and mutate.”

“And this time it’s mutating in  _French_.”

Phil scooted up to rest on his elbows, “Well, duh. The original line in the original song was in French, so of  _course_  it’s mutating in French!”

“What have you come up with so far?” Dan asked, curious despite himself.

Phil sat up, as if eager to share his misery. “Well, I woke up this morning singing, ‘Je voudrais danser avec mon poisson.’”

Dan raised his eyebrows. “You want to dance with your fish?”

Phil groaned. “I know! But I was singing it for about an hour! I think I might go insane.”

“Have you tried singing some other song to get it out of your head?” Crises like these were more common in the Howell/Lester household than some might expect. Well, actually, most people would expect them to happen pretty often if they knew Dan and Phil at all, so perhaps these kinds of crises happened to them about as often as one  _would_  expect.

“I’ve tried  _everything_ ,” Phil claimed, though this was patently untrue, because he hadn’t, for example, tried burning down the apartment, because it was still standing. Dan wouldn’t claim that burning down the apartment would help with the problem at hand—it was simply evidence that Phil had not, in fact, tried  _everything_. It was important to be precise in one’s use of language.

“Have you tried singing the whole song from the beginning to the end?”

Phil shook his head. “I really only know the chorus. And there’s something in there about ‘café au lait.’ And ‘diamonds in the glass’ and ’why spend mine when I can spend yours.’ I can’t remember lyrics as well as you do. I just make up my own. That’s the problem!”

“Okay, what were you looking up just now?”

“The verb ‘to sing,’” Phil replied.

“Well, ‘chanter,’ obviously.” Dan looked at him like he was an idiot.

Phil gave him an exasperated look. “Obviously. But I needed to find the right verb tense to make it work with Michael Bublé!”

Dan just stared at him in stunned silence. Eventually he repeated numbly, “Michael Bublé?”

“Yes!” Phil shouted. And then he sang, “Mike Bublé chantait dans le bois, je crois!”

“You and Michael Bublé are on a nickname basis now? You call him Mike? Does he call you Philly?” Dan was containing his laughter with great effort, though he didn’t think Phil would mind if he really let loose, since this was so obviously an utterly absurd and ridiculous situation. It would make for a great video, as long as they made creative use of subtitling because of all the French.

“Well, ‘Michael’ didn’t scan right!” Phil wailed in genuine distress.

Dan took Phil into his arms and held him, whispering into his ear, “This is really getting to you, isn’t it, sweetheart?”

Phil only sang quietly, “Le frommage me fait souffrir du terroir,” still to that same wretched tune. Dan wanted to strangle Lil’ Kim, Pink, Christina, and that fourth one, whatever her name was. Mya? Why did they have to remake that damned catchy tune? Well, it was for a fabulous film, of course, but was it really worth Phil’s sanity? Really, ladies? Did Phil Lester matter so little in the scheme of things?

Dan began swaying with Phil to the tune, a little slower than the actual song, but still with the same rhythm. “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir,” he sang softly.

Phil wrapped his arms around Dan’s waist and shuffled his feet along with him in the fairly slow dance. “Tu veux être extrêmement beau, comme moi,” he sang back to Dan, who laughed out loud, his head falling back with the force of his laughter.

He brought his face back to Phil’s and kissed him on the cheek. “That one was particularly good. Yes, you are particularly handsome, especially today. I think maybe it’s the oven-cleaner. It added that special something to your hair.”

They continued to sway together, both humming the tune to “Lady Marmalade,” until Dan sang into Phil’s ear, “Tu m’aimes beaucoup et pour longtemps, n’est-ce pas?”

“Oui,” Phil replied immediately, stopping the dancing for a moment, his face soft. “Je t’aime. Plus que tout au monde.” He kissed Dan’s cheek very gently before pulling away to meet his gaze. He licked his lips, and then his soft smile slowly transformed into a smirk. One eyebrow raised, he sang lasciviously, “Je voudrais que tu m'approches. Viens, baise moi!”

Dan frowned in confusion at Phil’s attitude. “‘Baiser’ is just ‘kiss,’ isn’t it?”

Phil chuckled. “I discovered earlier today that Google Translate has lost its innocence. Do you need me to literally spell it out for you?” Dan shrugged in confusion.

Phil walked over to his laptop where Google Translate was open in the window, ready to translate from French to English. He typed in “Viens, baise moi” and Google Translate immediately obliged by supplying “Come on, fuck me” in the window for the English translation.

Dan laughed and pulled Phil away from the computer. “It might distract you from that damn song, I suppose. And since you asked so nicely … in French, even … how can I deny you?” He smiled his best teasing smile and pulled Phil by the hand toward the bedroom.

**Author's Note:**

> All of the French sentences that are sung in the story (regardless of their grammatical accuracy or lack thereof) have the same basic cadence, rhythm, and rhyme as the famous line from the song “Lady Marmalade” (“Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?”). In case you’re lazy, don’t speak French fluently, and are interested, here are some approximate translations of the lines sung in the story:
> 
>   * Voulez-vous doucher avec moi maintenant? — Would you like to shower with me right now? (grammar incorrect)
>   * Mouchez moues mauvais avec ma mémoire — this one is purposely gibberish just for alliteration
>   * Embrasse-moi très fort, mon amour, ma foi! — Kiss me very hard, my love, indeed!
>   * Je voudrais danser avec mon poisson — I would like to dance with my fish
>   * Mike Bublé chantait dans le bois, je crois — Mike (Michael) Bublé was singing in the woods, I believe
>   * Le frommage me fait souffrir du terroir — Cheese causes me to suffer from soil (Phil clearly meant “terror” instead of “soil”)
>   * Tu veux être extrêmement beau, comme moi — You want to be extremely handsome like me
>   * Tu m’aimes beaucoup et pour longtemps, n’est-ce pas? — You love me a lot and for a long time, right?
>   * Je voudrais que tu m'approches. Viens, baise moi! — I want you to come closer. Come, fuck me!
> 



End file.
